After two grueling months in isolation for her bone marrow transplant, she is going home.

Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fevers, bone pain, depression - the side effects seemed endless during her stay at University Hospitals of Cleveland to fight the aggressive leukemia that nearly killed her last July. For 11 days she was so weak she could not leave the unit to visit her baby, Clara, who remains in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit since her birth nearly four months ago on July 16.

Erin's hair is gone. She can barely walk on her own. Her immune system is shot. Despite all that, she is animated today, talking to no one in particular as her husband and parents pack up her room.

"As soon as my stomach feels OK, I want to eat steak and coleslaw and a big baked potato with lots of butter and sour cream," she says, sitting on her bed. "I want to feel the wind on my face. I want to take a walk around the block. I want to hug my dog."

Richard Creger, a pharmacologist, taps on the door and walks in. Everyone sits down as Creger plants himself on the window seat.

"This has been the easy part," he tells them. "The next year is the hard part."

Erin's face falls.

"The No. 1 thing we're going to be looking for is graft-vs.-host disease," he says. "It's like a kidney transplant: It grows up and says, 'Uh-oh, this isn't my body.' Your body can decide to attack. It can attack your skin. It can go from a rash to third-degree burns. It can attack your GI tract and your liver.

"A little bit of graft-vs.-host disease is OK. I try to prevent it by giving you a drug called Prograf, which acts like a big hammer to beat up on your marrow so it doesn't attack you. Steroids and other drugs are more hammers."

No one says a word as he lists more possible complications. "You can't fight infections like you did before. Little things become big things. A hangnail can become a massive bloodstream infection. You can have a cough one day and three days later it becomes pneumonia."

Erin stares wide-eyed at him, speechless.

"For sure in the next six months she's going to get a sinus infection, pneumonia, shingles," says Creger, looking at Erin's husband, Terry. "I know she's going to be hospitalized once, twice or three times because I can't beat up her bone marrow like this without consequences."

He points to Erin. "Stay away from crowds. Go when nobody is shopping. Be careful about touching the escalator. Wear a mask when you're out. When people come to visit, they must wear a mask, wash their hands. Earlier, if they brought germs it was OK. Now, it's fatal."

Back to the family: "She can go to church, but she needs to be the last one in, the first one out. I don't want anyone grabbing her. She's gone before anyone can hug her. . . . No fresh fruits. No deli meats and no restaurant food. Cook everything."

Terry, who is British, chuckles. "English cooking: Boil it."

"And then boil it some more," says Creger. "Kill it."

Erin sinks into her pillow.

"She's not allowed to drive until she can do this" - he stomps his foot - "when a kid runs in front of the car."

"And no walking around the block," says Creger, "because she has no energy. One house over, one house back. Two houses over, two houses back."

Erin sighs, stares at her lap. "Christmas is coming," she says softly.

Creger looks at her. "You want a Christmas tree?"

"Yeah."

"I'm worried about water sitting there," he says, frowning. "Buy the tree early and hose that sucker down. . . . And then make sure you have bleach in the water. Put the tree up the day before Christmas and take it out the night after."

Creger stands and looks at Erin. "You did good," he says, offering his hand. Erin reaches to shake it.

"Ah!" says Creger. "No shaking hands!"

The family laughs as Erin smiles weakly.

"Get her out of here," says Creger.

An hour later, Erin, wearing a mask and gloves, is standing with Terry at Clara's crib. Her right arm is looped around him as she stares at their daughter, who is finally off the feeding tube but still tethered to oxygen. She must stay behind.

"Pretty soon you both will be home," says Erin's mother, Diane Linch. "Then the fun will begin."

Once they reach the parking garage, Terry motions for Erin to wait by the door.

"Stay there," he yells over his shoulder. "I'll come get you."

As soon as he's out of sight, though, Erin begins her own slow walk to the car. "I'm not waiting," she says. "I'm outta here."

Two days later, Beachwood police Chief Mark Sechrist stands at a Rotary Club lectern to introduce Erin Jones, whom colleagues have unanimously voted "Officer of the Year."

"Erin came through our door, knocked it down and became a member of our force," he tells the audience. "She's my hero. I can't put it any plainer than that."

Fourteen Beachwood police officers line the back of the room as Erin gingerly weaves her way through a standing ovation. No one, including her family, had expected her to attend. She is elegant in a blue pinstripe pantsuit. A gray bowler is perched on her head. An IV of nutrients is strapped to her back. She steps up to the lectern and pulls off her face mask.

"I just want to say thank you for this award," she says, her voice trembling. "I've got a long ways to go. . . . Thanks to my family and thanks to the police officers and everybody who helped to raise money. I can't wait to get back in the saddle and get back to work."

A few minutes later, Erin finds out her fellow officers are holding their monthly union meeting in the hotel bar and decides to join them. Diane orders a Coke and watches Erin through the glass doors.

"Last week she couldn't even visit Clara in a wheelchair and now she's out shopping," says Diane. "She and Terry went to Babies-R-Us and bought a stroller and two car seats. That's what being at home will do for you."

Diane's eyes stay focused on Erin, who seems delighted to be back with "the guys."

"I keep thinking of how important it is to stress that this is life-threatening," Diane says. "It was hard hearing about all the risks when we were leaving. You want to hear, 'You've gotten past a hurdle.' "

Erin glances out the window and waves at her mom.

Diane waves back. "She's in a lot of danger," she says. "The possibility of something going really, really wrong is there."

Gary, Diane and Terry are packing up Clara's belongings for her long-awaited homecoming after 151 days in the hospital.

Clara has made steady and strong progress in the last few weeks, unlike Erin, who vomits as many as 20 times a day because of ongoing complications from chemotherapy and radiation. Erin is pale and thin, continuously at University Hospitals' Ireland Cancer Center for tests and medications. Clara, though, is almost plump now, having gained 8 pounds since her birth. She is still on a small amount of oxygen, but doctors have decided she is ready to go home. In addition to the oxygen, she is tethered to a monitor that tracks her heartbeat and respiration.

Diane and Gary, who have been alternating overnights with Clara, are worried about the burden on Terry, who will now be taking care of both a wife and a daughter with weak immune systems and a long list of needs. The family took an infant CPR class last week, but there has been a little discussion about whether Terry and Erin need hired help during the day or if they should move in temporarily with Diane and Gary in North Ridgeville.

"We have made a conscious decision to leave the basic choices to them, without pressure from us," says Gary. "A lot of what we've been concerned about is Erin's emotional state. She's been so sick with the nausea, and she's had so little chance to feel like a real mother. We're taking it day by day." Tonight Diane, who is most familiar with Clara's care, will sleep at Erin and Terry's home in Lyndhurst.

Clara's discharge prompts a parade of medical staff. Christina Thompson of High-Tech Home Care spends a half-hour explaining the monitor but then encourages them to trust their instincts.

"You're all better monitors than the machine. It can't call 9-1-1. It can't call the doctor. It can't perform CPR. If you're with the baby, you're a much better monitor than this machine."

A pediatrician stops by, followed by a nutritionist and then a hospital social worker lugging a car bed for Clara. "I heard she failed the car seat test," she says, referring to Clara's inability to breathe well in a semi-upright position. "You'll need this."

An hour later, Clara and her entourage - including Gary, Terry, Erin and Erin's two sisters, Becca and Katie - pile off the elevator and head for Diane's van waiting at the entrance. Terry kisses Erin and whispers in her ear, "We're going home, Jonesy."

Terry plops onto his living room sofa and throws his arms up in the air. "I understand why women work."

He looks at Clara, now free of both oxygen and the monitor, dozing in her battery-operated swing. "Welcome to motherhood. I'm bored to death here. Now I realize why mothers go off to work. Not just for the money. As Diane puts it, 'We're all on baby time now.' "

It is Jan. 26, two weeks since Erin passed the crucial 100-day mark of her transplant. Everyone has let out a collective sigh of relief, says Terry.

"We got to transplant day 102 and suddenly I realized my whole attitude had changed. I remember how devastated I felt when we heard it: Cancer. Now we're rehashing. The focus now is on getting better."

He pulls out photos of Bethany, the twin who died. Her ashes are being stored at a West Side funeral home.

"We're meeting with our pastor on Monday to plan her funeral," he says, staring at the pictures of his dead daughter. "It's time to grieve, time to christen Clara, time to get back to work. At least for Erin."

Terry has been on family leave for weeks. He frowns, shrugs his shoulders. "My major job is getting Erin back to work, and I can't put a kid with a compromised immune system into day care. I know if I went back to work I just couldn't cope. I have two patients to care for."

He points to the upstairs bedroom where Erin is asleep. "Erin can't do as much as she wants. She still has medical problems, but they're small and chronic. She needs some mental stimulation and she needs goals. Erin always does better when she has goals. For example, she wants to focus on what she needs to do to get back to work, but that's hard to do when you're unwell. Yesterday, though, she was photographed in a police jumpsuit for the department's annual report. That was a start. And we've decided to baptize Clara on Easter Sunday."

Terry picks up a framed love poem by Susan Polis Schutz that he gave Erin for Christmas. It was the same poem read at their wedding.

"Most people don't look at their marriage and say, 'I might possibly lose this.' I have to. And if I'm going to lose it tomorrow, which I could, then I'm going to make sure I don't waste today. Marriage is not a 20-year thing. It's a day-to-day thing that adds up to 20 years, 30 years, 40 years."

He puts the frame back on the shelf. "If you're lucky," he says. "If you're very, very lucky."

Bad news.

Diane Linch silently mouths these words to her husband, Gary, as she holds the phone to her ear and tries not to cry. She hasn't been home for long, having spent the night with Erin, who was hospitalized the day before, Feb. 5, for relentless nausea and pain in her abdomen and back. She also has a new lesion on her face and two on her back.

Diane had just showered when Terry called from the hospital.

"All right," she says into the phone. "We'll meet you there." She hangs up the phone and begins to sob.

"Erin's leukemia is back," she says. Gary, speechless with shock, walks slowly to her and holds her as she cries.

Back at the hospital, Terry's mind races as he tries to decide how best to tell his wife that her cancer is back.

"This is devastating," he says.

He is sitting on a window ledge next to the elevators on Tower Six, his eyes red and puffy. "The scary thing is, this feels like the first night in Intensive Care, when we were all thinking, 'Oh, my God, what is happening?' The speed with which this has come back - within a week - doesn't look good. For me this indicates this disease isn't going to go away. We're going from talking about a cure to discussing life-expectancy. I can't help but see the worst-case scenario."

Terry tugs at his hair. "I'm shouting at people. This isn't good. I won't be an advocate for Erin this way. To be an advocate I have to say to them, 'I'm reasonable. I'm educated. I'm not going away.' I read that in a cancer magazine."

Terry starts to pace, ends up in the visitor's lounge. "No one's pulling any punches. I knew something was wrong. . . . Erin's a cop. She's going to start picking up on this."

He wipes his eyes. "Oh, God, we're talking about how many years does she have? How many months? Last week I was talking about how I needed to get back to work, how much I missed that. What the hell was I doing? How pathetic.

"Worst-case scenario: I'm burying two people, not one. When we were deciding on burial plots, we were trying to figure out if we needed one or two: one for Bethany, and one for Clara later. Now I'm thinking, I could put Bethany in the coffin with Erin."

He begins to cry, buries his face in his hands. "I am so scared to be alone."

Gary walks into the room and Terry looks up. "I want Carrie [Nemec] to tell Erin the news," says Terry, referring to the transplant coordinator at the Ireland Cancer Center to whom Erin has turned many times for explanations and support.

"It's just too blunt, isn't it? When the doctors tell you, I mean. I feel like all the hope's been sucked out of the room."

An hour later, the minister who married Erin and Terry is praying out loud as the family holds hands around her bed: "We all have our questions," says the Rev. Mike Gibson. "We know you have the answers. Help us see a clear line of attack . . ."

After he leaves, Erin sighs and looks at Diane.

"This really sucks," says Erin, lying flat on her back because she has just had another bone marrow biopsy in which a needle is bored into her hip bone to extract a sample of marrow.

"Yeah," says Diane. "This does suck."

"Well, if it is leukemia, I got here a lot sooner than last time so maybe they can stop it."

"You bet," says Diane.

Erin looks over at Terry, who is resting his head on the back of a chair.

"Terry, you OK?" she asks.

"Yes," he says, not looking at her.

"Terry," she says. "They told me I should schedule the baptism sooner."

He looks up. "Because you're going to get worse?"

Diane answers. "Because she's feeling good right now and treatment may make her feel lousy for a while."

Erin tears up. "I think we need to do it this Sunday."

The family agrees, and then Gary hands Clara to Erin. She straddles Clara across her chest and starts kissing different parts of her face. "There's your eye (kiss) and there's your nose (kiss) and there's your cheek (kiss)."

She looks up at Diane. "So, have you got any more information on that house on the beach?"

Diane nods. "I thought I'd call on that one with the four bedrooms, right on the beach."

"Could you do it soon, Mom?"

Diane smiles at her. "I'll do it today."

The next morning, Diane is sitting outside Erin's room giving Clara a bottle. "This is going to be much harder now," she says. "We know what we're up against this time. We have few options. This is much worse than that first day in [intensive care]. We know everything now."

Terry walks by and Diane watches him enter Erin's room. "Yesterday was horrible. Yesterday we were all asking ourselves, 'How is this going to affect me?' I was thinking, 'I can't go through this again.' But today I realized, 'Hey, it's not about me. It's not about any of us. It's about Erin.' Terry isn't there yet. And it's harder for him because he's home alone."

Later that day, Erin is discharged for the weekend. The next morning, on Friday, she calls a family meeting before a conference call with her oncologist, Dr. Omer Koc. "I want all the ideas I can have for questions to ask Dr. Koc," she says to Terry and her parents. "I want to know all my options."

They come up with a list of seven questions. The first one is the hardest: "How much time does Erin have if she does not pursue further treatment?" asks Terry.

Koc hesitates. He knows that sometimes family members want more information than the patient.

"I want to add," says Koc, "that I have hope and I wanted to give it to you." And then he starts outlining treatment options, which include chemotherapy, an experimental antibody therapy and infusing additional white blood cells from her donor.

When the call ends, the entire family starts whooping and pumping their arms.

"He says he has hope," says Erin. "That's all we needed to hear."

The following morning, Gary stands behind a tripod to focus the video camera.

"OK, Erin," he says. "Whenever you're ready."

Erin smiles at the camera. "Hi, Clara," she says. "This is a little history about me and how you came to be."

The video is Diane's idea.

"We all should do this for our kids," Diane tells Erin, who nods in agreement.

"It's not like I'm giving up, not like this is the end," says Erin in a cheerful voice. "But it'd be nice for Clara to have."

For the next few hours, with several breaks, Erin records a video for her daughter. She talks about her childhood, falling in love with Terry, her life as a cop.

"I got my ears pierced when I was 16. That's how old you'll be, Clara. . . . In middle school I got picked on for being awkward. . . . I'm stubborn. I'll pick away and pick away until I get what I want. . . . You'll know it's love when you can't think of anything else but him. . . ."

Toward the end, Terry joins her on the video. He watches Erin as she talks about her love of running and why she joined the police force. His face clouds as Erin begins to talk about cancer.

"On Sunday, July 16, I gave birth to twins. Bethany went to heaven. Clara came out crying and screaming."

Terry reaches for her hand.

"Oh, I'm OK," she tells him as the camera continues to roll. She outlines her chemotherapy and describes the first time she got to see Clara - 11 days after she was born. "It was just the most awesome feeling to touch her for the first time after being deprived," she says.

Gary brings Clara over to her.

"This is Clara as I know her today," Erin says, looking into the camera. "My hopes and dreams are that she grows up and she helps make a difference in this world by her very presence."

She looks down at Clara. "I know she already has in all of our lives."